


'Cause we always have each other

by salvatorestjohn



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Birthday Cake, Bisexual Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Other, Pansexual Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Pre-Canon, Surprises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvatorestjohn/pseuds/salvatorestjohn
Summary: “Happy birthday!” Bobby and Alex are both shifting uncomfortably. “We, uh . . . we got you a cake.”Luke’s stopped a short way from Reggie. He glances back at Alex, raising his eyebrows and keeping that expression when Alex gingerly shrugs, his arms wrapped around himself, and he turns it on Bobby instead who just looks down.“Well, we made it,” Reggie says, eyeing the lopsided, simply—and quite frankly, badly—decorated cake. “But—it’s practically the same thing!”
Relationships: Alex/Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 79





	'Cause we always have each other

“He looks miserable,” Alex mutters.

It’s hard for Reggie to argue. Watching Luke from the couch, miserable is the only word that could be used to describe him. He’s just sitting there on that old stool they found, strumming away on his guitar.

It’s not exactly out of the ordinary for him. He loves to practice twenty-four-seven, which is great! Tiring sometimes, but they’re a band, they need that push every now and then. It’s the way he’s only half-heartedly playing the chords and, quite frankly, getting more than a few of them wrong, some coming out just plain flat. And he doesn’t even seem to care. 

There’s none of his usual enthusiasm, none of his usual passion, bounding around and trying to hype them up into the same energy, something that actually works a good three-quarters of the time. Not even a look of concentration on his face. Just this faraway, unfocused, glazed over look in his eyes. He just doesn’t care. He’s not even _here_ . And he loves being here—he’s told Bobby that his house is awesome and that it’s _so cool_ of his parents to let them practice and keep all of their stuff in the garage.

“Well,” Reggie shrugs, “he _is_ miserable. He can’t go home, he misses his parents. It’s the first birthday he’s spent without them.” He looks at Alex. “I can’t imagine turning seventeen and not at least being with parents, even if they were arguing the entire day.”

Alex hums his agreement. Even his seventeenth birthday was spent around his family. He said it was full of tension as he’d not long since come out to them as gay, and his parents spent the day trying to keep it from his grandparents. His little sister was the only one who made the “party” tolerable by being the only one who didn’t care and just kept calling him "old man" the entire time despite only being three years older than her. Apparently his sister, the cake, and getting to leave to come hang with them for practice were the only good parts about his seventeenth. 

But Luke. Luke only has the band. And right now, even that doesn’t seem to be cheering him up.

They both look back over at him still pretending to actually be working on their newest song—Long Weekend—while really all he’s doing is staring at a spot on the floor. 

Alex sighs quietly as Reggie brings his knee up to his chest, leaning his chin on top of it. “I hate seeing him like this,” Alex says quietly, and Reggie feels the pain in his voice. It’s an ache, deep in Reggie’s chest and catching in Alex’s throat. 

They both hate it. Most of all because they don’t know how to help. Every time they’ve tried to talk to Luke all day, he’s barely responded with five words. He hasn’t even acknowledged that it’s his birthday, despite them all saying _happy birthday!_ upon seeing him.

“What's up with him?" Bobby asks quietly, flopping down next to Alex on the couch. He's been watching him too, but been trying to be more subtle about it, sneaking concerned glances when he's fiddling with the guitars, or hemming the sleeves of one of Luke's shirts so it's ready for their next gig.

"It's his birthday," Alex reminds him.

Bobby's expression quickly morphs into realization, his eyes darting back over to Luke. He gives a visible wince of sympathy as it seems to click for him as well. "Oh, man."

“We need to do something,” Reggie decides, because he just glanced back over at Luke again as well and he can’t just sit here, not doing anything. And Alex is starting to lose it, too.

Alex shifts his attention back to him. “Like what? We can’t exactly make his parents accept that he wants to be in the band.”

“No, but we can do something smaller,” Bobby muses, shrugging. “Just something that’ll make him a little bit happier than he is now. A distraction, or just . . . anything.”

Alex’s head tilts, his eyes darting over to Luke. He’s got that look on his face that tells Reggie he’s genuinely thinking it over, which inspires some confidence in him that they might actually be able to come up with something good. 

“I guess something small wouldn’t hurt,” Alex says, uncertainly. “We could go down to the pier? I think if I asked my parents for some money, we could maybe get a pizza?”

“As if they’ll ever agree to that,” Reggie says pointedly, looking back up at Alex, whose expression hardens. “You know they're not cool with Luke anymore, or me for that matter, because of . . . well, you know, same reasons that you spend nearly as much time as here as Luke does, and he lives here. They don’t approve of us.”

As hard as it is to admit, they all know it’s the truth, especially Alex. Coming out was one thing, but telling his parents he’s in a relationship with two guys, and not just any two, but Luke and Reggie? That did not lessen the tension. 

“We’re doing something," Alex agrees firmly, his mind apparently made up. "We just need to find a way to get, you know, food or something, so it’s not just more depressing.”

“We can use the money we saved from our last few gigs,” Reggie says, shrugging.

He uses the word “gigs” very lightly. The most performances they’ve really had recently have been four birthday parties, two book club meetings, and pretty much every spare afternoon that they spend playing on the pier for tips. 

“That could work,” Alex agrees, looking thoughtful and nodding a little more encouragingly. “It’s not a whole lot, but it should be enough to buy at least a cake, and maybe something small, right?”

“We should make the cake,” Reggie decides. “He said his parents always baked his birthday cake.”

Alex gives him a funny, almost judgy look. “What makes you think any of us are actually capable of doing that?”

“I—I know how to bake!” Reggie protests. “Sort of.”

“Uh, could we maybe circle back to that discussion on using our band money?” Bobby cuts in, quickly sitting forward, wide-eyed. “We need that money. You know, we’re trying to start an actual, successful career here, and we’re not going to do that by blowing all of the money we get straight away."

“We can make more,” Reggie reasons. 

“Yeah, there’ll be more parties, more . . . book clubs,” Alex agrees. “And, the pier’s always open, so, it’s not like it’s going to be impossible to earn it back in a couple of weeks. This is important.”

Bobby sputters. "More important than the _band_?" 

Reggie's eyebrows draw together. "Luke is part of the band. I'd say he's just as important—actually, yeah, more important.”

“Way more,” Alex says. “We’re doing this. You can take your quarter of the money if you want.”

Bobby hesitates, his mouth open in protest. But he looks back over at Luke, and it softens down into a quiet sigh. He just shakes his head, giving a small smile. 

"No, you're right," he agrees. "This is important. We can... make more." He goes to lean back, but then hastily adds, "But can we try to keep it cheap? So we at least have something left? If we want to get any kind of recording studio to actually let us in, we’ll need _some_ money. Even Luke would agree with that, you know he'd be furious if we spent all of the money on him instead of trying to save it."

“Yeah, I know," Alex sighs, softening up a bit as well now as he turns back to Reggie. “How confident are you that you can actually make a semi-decent, edible, probably-not-gonna-kill-us cake? Because I have no idea how to bake.”

Reggie ponders the question. He’s never, technically speaking, baked anything before in his life. And his parents weren’t exactly the make-cookies-together kind of parents, so there’s no chance of any him having seen any recipes around the house. But he’s pretty sure that he can pick up the basics, from the back of a box or something. How hard can it really be?

“Ninety-nine-percent!” Reggie grins. 

For some reason, Alex and Bobby don't look convinced. But he glances once more at Luke—who hasn’t looked up once the entire time, and is still strumming away like a sad, guitar-playing puppy—and sighs again, nodding. 

“All right, let’s do it,” he says, throwing his hands up. Louder, he calls over to Luke, “Hey, Luke! We’re gonna head down to the pier. We can grab something to eat?”

Luke actually lifts his head at Alex’s voice. He gives the slightest raise of his eyebrows. 

“Hm? Oh. Uh, yeah, okay. Sure.” Luke ducks under his guitar strap and sets the instrument down on the ground, leaning against the amp. “Do we have enough money? I thought we didn't make much from the last gig and that was going towards the studio?"

Alex brushes him off, getting up to meet him and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “Yeah, ‘course we have enough. Come on. Reggie and Bobby will meet us there.”

Luke’s eyebrows furrow. “Why don’t you guys just come the now? Or, we can wait?”

“No! No, no, no,” Reggie quickly says (maybe a little too quickly), hopping to his feet as well. “I mean. We’ll be there just after you guys, there’s just something we have to do first, but it really won’t take long. Go! Go on! We’ll meet you there!”

Luke is definitely suspicious. He looks from one of them to the other, but Bobby agrees with Reggie and Alex smiles encouragingly. He lets it drop with a shrug and an, “okay” before letting Alex pull him out of the garage. 

As soon as they’re out of earshot, the doors shutting behind them, Bobby turns to Reggie.

“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” he asks.

Reggie shakes his head. “Not a clue. But we can figure it out.”

When he says _we_ , he really means _he_ , because he’s the one who speeds around the little corner shop grabbing every item on the list that he made in his mind after looking at the back of one or two cake mix boxes. Bobby did question why they didn’t just buy one of those instead and be done with it, but Reggie insists. It has to be completely from scratch, not a box. People can tell the difference, and he is positive that Luke’s parents never made his cakes from a box. 

And when it actually comes down to making the cake, Reggie does most of the work. Bobby passes him a bowl and two eggs. He's a little clueless about baking. Reggie doesn’t care. He’s more focused on the recipe book he found in one of the cupboards. Some of the writing is smudged and faded so it takes some guesswork on his part to fill in the blanks, but he’s pretty confident that he got it right!

Bobby’s dad duck in and out a couple of times, asking if they need any help. But Reggie just grins confidently and says they have it all sorted. He doesn’t appear to be too convinced either. Is he the only one who thinks this isn’t a total disaster of an idea?

The actual baking of the cake takes a lot longer than Reggie was actually expecting, he’ll admit. After the first twenty minutes, he starts getting a bit anxious. Luke is definitely going to think that something is up if he and Bobby don’t show up soon. And Alex is great, but there is only so long that that boy can stall.

Thankfully, when it’s finally ready, Reggie figures they should be fine and manages to squeeze in just enough time to slather some icing on the whole thing to make it look a little less, well, plain. He pours out nearly half the tiny bottle of sprinkles he picked up, making sure they’re fairly well evened out. Then he grabs the two packs of candles and counts out seventeen of the stripey sticks and places them around the edges as neatly as possible. It looks . . . not great. 

By the look on Bobby’s face, eyebrows raised, forehead wrinkles, lips slightly parted as if to speak but having no idea what to say without being rude, Reggie guesses he’s probably thinking the same thing. But it’s a cake! And they are already far later than they should be. 

With the cake slid carefully onto a plate, and Bobby’s lighter (Reggie does not question where he got it from so quickly, nor does he want to know), they quickly head out to the backdoor, intending to get down to the pier as quickly as possible. 

Reggie nearly drops the cake when he has to come to a quick halt at the same time as Alex stumbles to a stop to prevent a collision. His eyes widen. 

“What are you doing back here?!” Reggie whisper-shouts, though he’s not entirely sure why. His instincts are just telling him that Alex being _here_ can’t be good.

“Luke made me!” Alex whisper-shouts back. He gestures pointedly at the cake. “You took so long that he got worried and wanted to come back to see if you guys were okay!”

“And you didn’t stop him?” Bobby asks.

Alex glares, giving a tight smile. “No, I didn’t. I told him that was a great idea, and we should hurry back to ruin the surprise that we have planned for him.”

Reggie’s eyes widen even further. “What?! Alex!”

“I didn’t actually—” Alex rolls his eyes, throwing his hands up and gesturing behind him. “Will you just help me here? Luke is in the garage. What do we do?”

Finally, his eyes dart down to the plate in Reggie’s hands. He falters, eyebrows raising in not the subtlest way at the cake. He makes a face but says nothing. Reggie glances down at it in confusion.

“What?” When he lifts his eyes back up to meet Alex’s and Bobby’s, he quickly adds, “All right, I know it isn’t pretty, and it’s . . . a mess, but—it’s the best we have on short notice! So, it’s just going to have to make do!”

Bobby and Alex have no arguments. Alex holds up his hands as if to say he wasn’t going to say anything anyway. Doubtful, but Reggie appreciates neither of them choosing to comment, especially considering there’s not much they can do about it now other than just toss the whole thing into the garbage. 

But Reggie remembers Luke’s expression back in the garage. He refuses to do _nothing_. After all, something, even if it is an absolute mess like the one he’s holding, is better than nothing, right?

“We’ll just . . . give him it in the garage.” Alex shrugs. “No big deal.”

“Yeah! Okay, let’s go!”

The three of them hurry their way back down the path from the house to the garage. They burst unceremoniously into the garage, Alex and Bobby both hissing at Reggie to keep the cake steady as the plate wobbles. It’s a good thing that Luke’s upstairs, so he doesn’t witness the near-disaster that occurs when Reggie tilts from side to side to try and balance it better.

Fortunately, he succeeds. He blows out a breath, wide-eyed, and looks at Alex in relief. Alex, now facing him with his hands still held up in front of him, runs a hand through his hair as he glances behind at the upper level to make sure they’re still in the clear. A beat passes before they catch Luke muttering lyrics to himself somewhere out of sight. 

Alex gives the all clear, motioning his head to the stairs. 

“Should I—?” Reggie starts to asks, moving to take a step forward to head up.

Both Alex and Bobby immediately make noises like wounded animals and act as if they’re about to lunge at him. Reggie quickly halts.

“All right, all right!” he hastily says. He gives the cake a once-over; only twelve of the candles are still lit. “Yeah, probably not a good idea. You’re right.”

Alex gives a slight raise of his eyebrows. Then he just shakes his head and points to the other side of the room. Reggie gets the gist of what he’s trying to silently say. He nods back, smiling secretively, and he and Bobby move across the room as quietly as possible while Alex goes up the stairs instead.

Reggie’s barely opened his mouth before he realizes Bobby’s already got the lighter in his hand and has it lit. He gestures to the cake urgently and Reggie quickly holds it out to him to let him light the blown-out candles. 

“Alex! There you are, I was just about to come up to the house to look for you as well,” Luke says from somewhere above them. There’s the creak of wood, footsteps moving to meet Alex on the stairs.

“Hurry!” Reggie mouths at Bobby, only three candles left to light now. 

“Uh, yeah, I was just looking for them,” Alex stammers. He’s never been the best at concealing nerves or anxiety. “Sorry.”

Two candles left.

Alex throws a glance from where he’s been forced to stop midway up the stairs due to Luke’s appearance in front of him. Reggie nods as Bobby quickly runs the flame over the last two candles, both of them catching on the first go.

“It’s okay, but did you find them?” Luke asks.

Alex smiles now, the first time all day that it’s been entirely sincere and not the same, sad one that Reggie and Luke have been forcing all day as well. 

“Close your eyes,” Alex tells him. 

Luke makes a small noise like a laugh. “Close my—? What?”

“Just—trust me. Close your eyes.”

“Alex—”

“Luke.”

After another fondly exasperated noise from Luke, he complies and closes his eyes. He spreads his arms and asks, “What now? Because I don’t really feel like falling down the stairs. That kind of thing hurts. A lot.”

Alex rolls his eyes, not that Luke can see him. He stretches out and takes his hands in each of his own. “Now’s where the trust part comes in.”

“If I break anything, you’re paying the hospital bill,” Luke warns him, allowing him to lead him down one stair, then another, slow and careful as Alex walks backwards. “And you’re gonna have to play nurse. Wait, no. Reggie’s the nurse, he has a nice bedside manner and gentle hands. I would not trust you near a broken bone.”

Alex pauses mid-step to give Luke an affronted look. “Rude.”

Luke chuckles softly, still not quite the vibrant, upbeat noise that it usually is. Even so, it returns a little spark of happiness to Reggie. 

Probably why he doesn’t think before whispering, “He makes a good point.”

Alex’s head spins around to shoot him a sharp look, and he can even feel Bobby’s eyes burning holes into him. Still not quite thinking, Reggie tries to defend himself, saying, “What? I am very caring, and my hands are _very_ gentle!”

“Dude,” Alex and Bobby both chide him. 

He registers why when he notices Luke’s head tilting and his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, trying to look for his voice with his eyes still scrunched shut. 

“Reggie?” Luke asks.

Sheepish, Reggie tries to shrug it off. So, the plan is very much crumbling around them, but it was never exactly a very sturdy one to begin with, if they’re all being honest. 

“Whoops,” Reggie mutters to an accusing Bobby. 

“Wait—right, what’s going on?” Luke asks, fully stopping on the fourth stair as Alex tries to laugh over the sound of Reggie’s voice and continue leading him down. 

He opens his eyes without warning. 

“AH, wait—!” Alex starts to say, trying to stop him, but he’s already too late. He sighs. “Okay. Well, I guess that’s that then.”

Luke’s eyes flit from Reggie to Bobby, more confusion only being thrown in. Honestly, Reggie isn’t even sure he takes in the cake, because the blank look that’s now on his face isn’t the kind he’d expect someone to have when presented with _cake_.

He tries for a grin, chuckling sheepishly as Luke slowly steps off of the last few stairs.

“Happy birthday!” Bobby and Alex are both shifting uncomfortably. “We, uh . . . we got you a cake.”

Luke’s stopped a short way from Reggie. He glances back at Alex, raising his eyebrows and keeping that expression when Alex gingerly shrugs, his arms wrapped around himself, and he turns it on Bobby instead who just looks down. 

“Well, we made it,” Reggie says, eyeing the lopsided, simply—and quite frankly, badly—decorated cake. “But—it’s practically the same thing!”

“You made it?” Luke asks, shooting them all a hard-to-read, quizzical look as Alex steps up beside them. 

“Reggie did,” Bobby admits, twisting the lighter between his fingers. 

Alex waves a hand at Reggie, who’s now the one shrugging sheepishly as Luke’s eyes shift back to him. “It was his idea to make it. Thought it would mean more.”

“But we all wanted to do something for you!” Reggie hastily adds. “You know, because . . . well, we care about you, and we just figured that . . . um, we should let you know that. You know, because you’re never alone!”

Luke isn’t saying anything. Just looking at the cake. Reggie stops himself from continuing to trip over the right way to word it. He just pushes out another sheepish chuckle, his grin twitching a little as he begins to question if this was such a good idea after all. 

Maybe Luke just wanted to ignore the whole thing altogether, and here they are making it into this big deal. Maybe he’s not saying anything because he’s mad at them for not just letting him treat the day as nothing important.

But then Luke looks up at Reggie, and he’s smiling. His eyes are shining brightly, a little too wide, like he’s scared to blink for fear of what’ll happen if he does. Then he’s breathing out an involuntary laugh, shaking his head in disbelief, and the tears fall.

“You’re right,” he says through it, ignoring the alarmed look on all three of their faces as he looks at each of them in turn. He sniffles, wiping a sleeve across his cheek as another little burst of laughter pushes past his lips. “I’m not alone. None of us are! ‘Cause we always have each other.”

He hooks an arm around Alex’s shoulder as he says it, looking at Reggie and Bobby. Reggie chuckles with him, Alex grins, and Bobby smiles, all of them relaxing now that Luke doesn’t seem to be having any kind of breakdown that they should be worried about. 

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, nodding. “We do, don’t we?”

“Sunset Curve forever, boys!” Luke says.

Reggie cheers. “Sunset Curve forever, yeah!”

Alex laughs, but still repeats the words, “Sunset Curve forever.”

Bobby smiles, and rolls his eyes, but he chimes in as well. "Yeah, okay, you dorks. Sunset Curve forever."

The flick of the lighter in his hand brings them back to the main focus. Luke swallows, breathing out another disbelieving laugh as he drops his arm from Alex’s shoulders.

“I cannot believe you guys actually did this, I—” He looks at them all. “Thank you. And—” he quickly turns to Reggie “—you actually made this? That’s—wow.”

Reggie shrugs, but a little bit of pride shines in him at the bright smile on Luke’s face. He’s genuinely happy, and grateful. The cake is a bit of a disaster, and Reggie is aware of that, but Luke is acting like it’s the best cake he’s ever seen and that’s all that matters. That he’s happy. 

Wiping the last tear tracks from his face, Luke asks, “Can I blow the candles out?”

“Can you—can he—” Reggie scoffs, grinning as Bobby and Alex do the same.

“Can you blow the candles out?" Bobby repeats mockingly, shaking his head.

"Of course you can, it’s your cake!” Alex tells him, and gestures for him to go ahead. 

Luke steps forward. He takes a deep breath but then he falters. For a moment, Reggie starts to worry again, and he can tell Alex and Bobby do as well as they all exchange a glance. But Luke just looks at them all carefully, a small smile pressed between his lips, and then he closes his eyes. He blows all seventeen candles out in two tries. 

The three of them whoop and cheer, making Luke laugh again. He rubs his hands together and raises an eyebrow at them. 

“Anyone got a knife? Let’s eat!”

Bobby ends up having to go back up to his house to get one, but when he returns, they cut into the cake and it doesn’t taste all that bad. They sit around the garage eating pretty much the entire thing. Screwed up balls of rejected song lyrics get tossed at each other as they joke around. 

Even just this little sliver of happiness is what Reggie had been aiming for. Seeing Luke momentarily distracted and at ease with everything like usual. But it’s okay that it doesn’t last once there’s only a slice left of the cake. 

Luke sits tapping a pen against his knee on the floor, a thoughtful look on his face. Reggie gives him a gentle nudge with his foot. 

“You okay?” he asks, his own smile leaving now as Luke tilts his head.

He takes a moment before nodding, then turns to look at him. “I was just thinking . . . there’s this song I’ve been trying to write for a couple of days. Weeks. Since I . . . left.”

Reggie exchanges a glance with Alex, who’s now pushing himself up from behind them on the couch with a look of equal concern, and Bobby, who’s seated on the edge of the arm of the couch with his eyebrows furrowing.

“Well, I’ve pretty much finished it, actually,” Luke tells them, then shrugs. “But I—I haven’t really tried playing it yet, and I was wondering if you guys would . . . play it with me?”

There’s a moment of quiet, more glances exchanged, then they’re all nodding.

“Yeah, of course,” Alex says softly.

“We’d be happy to,” Reggie agrees, sending him a gentle smile.

“I’ll grab the guitars,” Bobby says, already getting up.

Reggie follows, scrambling to his feet. “I’ll help.”

They retrieve the three guitars and get set up, Alex situating himself behind his drums. Luke starts them off, letting them get the hang of the chords and the rhythm. When he starts singing, the rest of them stay quiet. Even with the crack in his voice in the middle as he sings his mom’s name and the sadness shining in his eyes. 

This is what he needs too, Reggie knows, they can all see it. Not just a distraction, or a sliver of happiness. But to get everything on his mind out in the best way he knows how; through music. So, they play, and they play, practising the song a few times until Luke calls it a night himself. 

Even without any words said, something about Luke seems lighter when he drops onto the couch. More at ease and less burdened by his own thoughts. 

“This was a great birthday,” Luke says quietly to them, when they’re all settled down, just sitting in silence doing their own thing. They ditched the idea of going back down to the pier altogether, all of them feeling more at home at the garage. It's better like this, just the four of them. “Thank you. I really needed today.”


End file.
